There are often times when an athlete sustains an injury which is not severe enough to justify discontinuing the sport until the injury is healed but which is extremely painful and which is susceptible, if continuing to play the sport, to more serious injury.
According to conventional practice, athletes are taped against further injury, and although taping is the best answer to date to guard against further serious injury, this taping still has very substantial drawbacks. Firstly, there is quite an art to taping and only experienced trainers, doctors, etc. are generally capable of applying a good tape job. In cases where an injury is sustained in an area inaccessible to the athlete, such as the shoulder region, it is difficult, if not impossible, for the athlete to provide a self-taping job.
Further drawbacks relating to conventional taping practice include the fact that often large amounts of tape are required which is not reuseable and therefore very costly. In addition, the removal of the tape which is generally applied to the skin's surface, is extremely painful.
In addition to all of the above problems, probably the most objectionable drawback, with respect to taping is that initially it is extremely restrictive in terms of amount of movement allowed by the taping job; however, over time, i.e. the time during which the athlete is competing, the taping job tends to stretch and not being of an elasticized nature, loses its effectiveness, which results in the requirement of further taping, as we often see while watching a football game, where the football player is being retaped at the sidelines, while the game is being played.